On April 20, 2025, in the chapel of the village of Munzombo, in the parish of Lozo, in the territory of Gungu, Diocese of Idiofa, celebrated Mass on Easter Day. Kwilu Province, DR Congo.
Don't fear death
« With the risen Christ, life conquered death. Banning fear of death and death and cemeteries ».
So I preached in the chapel of Munzombo as in the parish church of Lozo-Munene during the Easter vigil on Saturday night.
The parish priest, my colleague Jean Poloto, entrusted these two celebrations. Together with two other confreres, Fathers Apollinaire Munsintoto, Vicar of the parish and Guillaume Muthunda, who came with me from Kinshasa (more than 600 kilometres away), we are four Oblate missionaries of Mary Immaculate who served various villages (Lozo-Munene, Lubu, Dongo, Kambanza, Kinzamba, Ngunda and Muneombo) for the celebration of Holy Week 2025, as we also did in 2024.
We came to recall the central message of the Christian faith: Christ, our savior, rose from the dead and made us change, rise with him.
I know precisely that the Negro-African tradition, that of my tribe in particular, cultivates rather the fear of death, death and graves. Now the Catholic Christian, the priest, believes and preaches the victory of Christ risen from the dead.
When will I have the joy of seeing that the Christian faith changed the mentality of death and death in this parish of Saint-Eugène de Mazenod where I followed catechesis and received my first communion in 1970?
The founder of the parish, the Belgian Oblate missionary Louis Sebreghts, died in Belgium in 2016. His teaching on death and life met the traditional belief on the death and worship of ancestors but also, without great difficulty, the teaching of the nearby Mennonite Protestant Church and some followers of the Congolese Church of Simon Kimbangu.
For many years, some new so-called revival churches have been established throughout the region. At the very least, these new Churches have disrupted faith and teaching about life and death. In particular, they exacerbate the fear of death. It seems to me that today the population is afraid of death and witches more than ever before.
Promoting life
At Easter 2025, I also preached about life, promoting and maintaining as a sign of the resurrection.
In these villages in the Lozo sector, Mrs.Evodie Gitona de Lozo-Munene attributes to the grace of God the good agricultural crops of this year: cassava, corn, squash, bean. She acknowledged that the fields of cultivation are wider and that family members, mothers and girls, cultivate different fields and increase the capacity of the family. Men are still simply carrying out the transport. Family consumption is therefore guaranteed and trade is growing more and more.
For cassava, in particular, in Munzombo, another lady rather spoke of a new cassava plant from elsewhere.
Jean-Baptiste Malenge
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